What kind of restaurants and food you can find in Japan?
This blog is for "Food Lovers" who are planning to travel in Japan, who are non-Japanese speakers living in Japan and all who are interested in food culture of Japan!
英語で日本の食文化を紹介するブログです。

3 posts from September 2013

30 September 2013

An interesting dining area was recently opened in Kyobashi (京橋), Tokyo. The area name may not be so familar for many international travellers. Kyobashi is an office district between Ginza and Nihonbashi. It's 5 minutes walk both from Ginza and Tokyo station. Recently a new high-rise building was opened along with commercial complex "Tokyo Square Garden" accommodating various attractive food & beverage facilities. Here we would like to introduce one of them. For others, definitely we will have another chance to cover them near future.

Denmark The Royal Cafe Terrace is located on B1 (basement 1st) floor of Tokyo Square Garden, which is directly connected to/from Exit No.3 of Kyobashi subway station on Ginza line.

Furniture and wall are decorated in various colours.

Even from outside, it looks to be a fun and cosy place.

Physically it is on the basement floor but the cafe is located in front of a large courtyard where sunlight directly comes in. When the weather is fine, seats on the outside terrace must be the best place!

When I ordered "Royal milk tea", it was provided with cute latte art!

For lunch, Denmark style open sandwich is also available and on weekday it opens for breakfast from morning.

16 September 2013

Japanese traditional type of alcohol, SAKE, must be an item that many of international travelers wish to try in Japan. Sake is made from rice and the flavour can be more or less similar to white wine made from grapes.

In Japanese, the Japanese traditional rice wine is called "Nihonshu"(日本酒, Japanese sake), while the word "sake" represents all sorts of alcohol drink regardless of the origin, Japanese or other countries.

Some of you may have had "Shochu" (焼酎) already. Shochu is also a traditional Japanese alcohol drink mainly produced in Kyushu region. It is distilled alcohol drink made from either of sweet potato, wheat or rice, having higher percentage of alcohol compared with Sake or Nihonshu.

Where we recommend to go to taste several types of Sake easily and surprisingly at very reasonable cost is Meishu Center (名酒センター) in Hamamatsucho (浜松町). It will be a good idea to drop by the center after visiting two major tourist spots in the area, Tokyo Tower and Zojoji-temple which are 10-15 minutes walk from the station.

Meishu Center offers over 100 brands of Sake across Japan, proposing an opportunity to enjoy Sake easily. At the small bar style boutique, we can taste each of these brands at minimum Yen200 per tasting glass and some of brands are also available by bottle for purchase.

Here the system of Meishu Center as following.

First, after entering the bourituque, find your place with 3 clear tasting glass on a standing counter or high table. It might be crowded between 19h00 - 20h00 on weekday.

Then from two refrigeated cases in the shop, select bottles you would like to try and BRING them to your place by own.

Ask a staff walking around the room. He or she will pour the sake into glass for you and will tell you a price for settelement.

When 3 kinds of SAKE are ordered at a time, your charge amount will be reducted by Yen 100.

If you have no idea which brand to choose, to be very kind, Nihonshu Center puts a tag not only in Japanese but also in English. Even if we do not know well these brand names, some information on a tag, such as origin prefecture (where you visited for example), types of sake, alcohol % or acidity will be helpful to find your favourite one.

Ttypes of Sake is categorized by whether alcohol is artificially added or not and the level of rice polishing. To know more detail about Sake, it will be better to check an amazing website by an English-native Sake specialist, John. He well gather contents in the field on his website. Click here.

Some kinds of snack selected to enjoy with sake are also provided at very reasonable cost from Yen50 (not Yen500!) for a small pack of rice cracker. Take one or two plates as you like and ask a staff for payment.

We chose a plate of sashimi konjac (fresh konjac potato, like cool jelly).

07 September 2013

Japanese beef is especially appreciated not only by local people but also by international travelers for the quality, taste and tenderness. We are sure that some of you plan to have good quality Japanese beef while you stay in Japan.

So here we introduce one of the best options to taste Japanese beef and also pork meat in Tokyo.

Yakiniku (焼き肉, grilled meat) or BBQ restaurant "Pure" (written in Japanese Hiragana as ぴゅあ) is operated by a professional meat distributor under the group of "JA" Japan Agricultural corporative association. At its 4 units in central Tokyo such as Shinagawa or Shimbashi, it offers high quality meat with traceability information at reasonable prices, making the most use of its network with livestock producers across Japan.

Of course, because of their meat dealer business in charge, the company knows the best ways to have Japanese beef and pork. They are the reasons we recommend BBQ restaurant Pure as a place to enjoy Japanese meat.

We visited Pure Shinagawa branch which is 5 minutes walk from JR Shinagawa station. The restaurant is situated on the second floor of modern Shinagawa Front Building.

Find it with the mark of "JA" at the entrance.

BBQ grill with smoke control system is equipped on each table.

That allows you to prepare meat at your favourite condition and at your own pace.

Will be nice to keep watching your meat cooked in front of you with yummy sound and aroma.

On each table, BBQ sauce, which is prepared with original recipe by each restaurant unit, and lemon juice are provided as dipping sauce for meat. If you are not sure which is good for a specific kind of meat, the restaurant staff will be happy to give you the best advices.

The restaurant offers a few types of assortment dishs

with selected popular and recommendable meat.

Although it has not been recognized widely yet out of Japan, Japanese pork meat is also recommendable to try in Japan.

Or If you are very curious about Japanese meat and wish to try something unique, why not try the assortment of "horumon(ホルモン, offal meat)".

The assortment plates includes beef heart, tripe and gut meat.

The unique parts of meat is chewy and no strong smell, because of selected high quality ingredient by the professional distributor.

After have enjoyed a great amount of nice Japanese beef and pork cooked on a grill, the restaurant offers other ways to enjoy these meat products.

The restaurant group opened its unit in Hong Kong in early 2013. If you are based in the city or have a chance to travel there, try some good quality meat imported by JA group without traveling to Tokyo.